OUAT vs. Other Fairy Tales: Compare & Contrast

[Camera One]

I watched "Encanto" two weeks ago, and I found it alright (not as good as word of mouth).

I can imagine how it could be incorporated into "Once".  I can see the grandmother getting that magic candle from making a deal with The Dark One, of course.  The Evil Queen in her search for Snow destroyed their village and killed her husband.  The main character not having any magical powers could be in Storybrooke trying to find her family, and through the half season, she gains her confidence.  Everyone has to go try to find Bruno (another fallen Savior who could get a pep talk from Regina or Emma?) so he could reveal the prophesy.  The villain could be one of the Disney baddies who don't have magic, so they stole the candle to give themselves power, which could lend itself to a crossover.

[KingOfHearts]

On 8/3/2022 at 1:44 PM, Camera One said:

I watched "Encanto" two weeks ago, and I found it alright (not as good as word of mouth).

I can imagine how it could be incorporated into "Once".  I can see the grandmother getting that magic candle from making a deal with The Dark One, of course.  The Evil Queen in her search for Snow destroyed their village and killed her husband.  The main character not having any magical powers could be in Storybrooke trying to find her family, and through the half season, she gains her confidence.  Everyone has to go try to find Bruno (another fallen Savior who could get a pep talk from Regina or Emma?) so he could reveal the prophesy.  The villain could be one of the Disney baddies who don't have magic, so they stole the candle to give themselves power, which could lend itself to a crossover.

The dark twist is that it's the same candle Snow used to kill Cora somehow.

[Camera One]

I have been rewatching Star Wars lately (first the original series, then some of the new stuff like "Obi-Wan Kinobe", "The Mandalorian" and "The Book of Boba Fett". and lately Episode 1 and 2 of the prequels and the Clone Wars movie... I'm going to try the Clone Wars animated series next), and Yoda and the Jedi in hindsight seem really blind and not too smart.  Yoda seemed like such a wise sage in the original trilogy.  I hadn't been much of a Star Wars fan until now, but the more I watch, the more I wish A&E got to "play" in the Star Wars universe for a season.

Anyway, I had always thought maybe the Blue Fairy and the fairies could have been like Yoda and the Jedi, but now I'm not sure. 

Edited August 10, 2022 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

1 hour ago, Camera One said:

Anyway, I had always thought maybe the Blue Fairy and the fairies could have been like Yoda and the Jedi, but now I'm not sure. 

The Jedi council weren't so much the bad guys as they were just really, really dumb. I think comparing them to Blue and the fairies is actually a fair assessment. They're not evil but they are blissfully ignorant where it counts. They even share weird dating rules. 

[Camera One]

24 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

The Jedi council weren't so much the bad guys as they were just really, really dumb. I think comparing them to Blue and the fairies is actually a fair assessment. They're not evil but they are blissfully ignorant where it counts. They even share weird dating rules. 

I still want to see the Blue Fairy, Yoda, Glinda, Merlin, Dumbledore and Gandalf in discussion together.  Out of them, Gandalf is probably the most competent, but there are definitely potential areas of grey, where they consider themselves superior and feel justified in keeping vital information to themselves (while keeping their "friends" in the dark) for the "greater good", have rigid rules or traditions that make them intolerant of those who do not obey (in particular Blue and Yoda, with regards to dating) and can be a little cold in giving advice that could potentially get people killed, again in the name of the "greater good".  

Edited August 10, 2022 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

15 hours ago, Camera One said:

Out of them, Gandalf is probably the most competent, but there are definitely potential areas of grey, where they consider themselves superior and feel justified in keeping vital information to themselves (while keeping their "friends" in the dark) for the "greater good", have rigid rules or traditions that make them intolerant of those who do not obey

Gandalf was at least useful with his deus ex machina eagles. Blue never really swooped in and saved the day from what I recall.

The Jedi council had consequences for their ineptitude and in some ways (but very much not in all ways) redeemed themselves later. Their blindness to the truth and callous treatment of Anakin led to the rise of Darth Vader and the destruction of the Republic. Yoda and Obi-wan go into exile and take the fall for this, but later choose not to repeat the same mistakes with Luke. The fairies and "good" magical users like Glinda never really took responsibility for their actions. It was like "yeah sorry, we kind of let Black Fairy, Zelena, etc. run around with too much power, but we want to stop them now, so it's fine." 

Glinda never seemed to be that emotionally invested in Zelena, even though they were "sisters". A great mortal flaw for powerful good characters is letting caring about someone blind them to the evil that person is doing in the dark. Obi-Wan saw Anakin as his brother and turned a blind eye to his forbidden relationship with Padme and other questionable actions. He was willing to give him a benefit of a doubt because of how he knew him when he was a boy. Meanwhile, Zelena was already evil was when Glinda met with her. Zelena even threatens to kill her on sight. Glinda knew full well she was shady and just poached her to use her power (and because she was probably afraid of her). It wasn't a case of Zelena being a good person who was tempted to the dark side. Glinda knew Zelena wasn't trustworthy, yet gave her a pendant to channel her power even though she knew she was already too powerful. It's pretty hilarious when she explains this to the Charmings and they don't question it.

The "good" characters don't really care about other people as much as they need to hold onto vague "goodness". It would be like Obi-Wan knowing full well Anakin slaughtered the tuskan raiders and after that taking him on as a padawan because there's good in everybody. Sure, there was Qui-gon's Chosen One prophecy and Padme claiming there was still "good" in him, but a) Anakin didn't start out as a bad guy at all, and b) we as the audience knew he would eventually sacrifice himself to save the galaxy. There were many more reasons for Obi-wan to believe Anakin wouldn't turn to the dark side than there were for Glinda to believe Zelena would represent "innocence."

Would you really trust a witch who is literally green with envy, tried to kill you with a fireball, turned a man into flying monkey slave, and is obsessed with time travel? Yeah, let's put her on the council that protects Oz. I'm sure she'll be a force of good we can trust.

[Camera One]

I watched "Descendants 2" and it made "Once" look like a masterpiece.  It astounds me how Disney has all these iconic characters and worlds, and there have been so few mashups, which are usually of low quality.

In this movie, there's Ursula's bratty daughter and Hook's bratty son and Gaston's idiotic son, but that's pretty much the extent of the connection.  I think the first "Descendants" movie was a little better because they actually had Maleficent as part of the story manipulating her daughter, with the Evil Queen, Jafar and Cruella frozen in some "museum". 

But the worldbuilding was so bad in "Descendants 2" where an off-camera Ursula is supposedly running a bad diner and off-camera Tremaine is treating her granddaughter like a servant on some island that the "heroes" ignore.  

And that's without mentioning the Halloween store quality costumes and the overproduced songs where you can't even imagine the same voice coming out of the actors.

That's why I was sort of looking forward to A&E and Brigitte Hale's failed series "Epic", so we could get another attempt at a fairy tale show.

I think "Once Upon a Time" became too much of a mess to get spinoffs in the same universe.  I can't think of a prequel since they already gave bad origin stories to a lot of the more intriguing aspects of the series (like the Dark Curse).  A sequel set in The Good Queen's kingdom of kingdoms would be a total mess.

[Camera One]

I just watched "Raya and the Last Dragon" (spoilers below).

Some elements of the movie was pretty fun, but the morality sort of reminded me of "Once Upon a Time".  Whereby the "good guy" was considered to be "just as guilty" as the backstabbing villain for not putting all her trust in that backstabbing villain.  

I can see them incorporating this show into a half-season of "Once" too.  

[Camera One]

I watched "Hocus Pocus" for the first time.  The movie was alright, though I can't say I enjoyed the witches enough to warrant a sequel.  I wonder why these 3 witches weren't in the Coven in Season 7, though.  

[KingOfHearts]

On 10/2/2022 at 11:42 PM, Camera One said:

I watched "Hocus Pocus" for the first time.  The movie was alright, though I can't say I enjoyed the witches enough to warrant a sequel.  I wonder why these 3 witches weren't in the Coven in Season 7, though.  

There were so many B- and-C-list witches they could've used for the coven. What about Madam Mim from Sword in the Stone? Morgana le Fay? The Witch from Brave? What if instead of a random alternate Blind Witch for the Zelena episode, why not use one of the nameless witches from Oz? (East and North) 

I really like the idea of villain team-ups and the Coven was really not a bad idea at all. I just wish they didn't end up being the Coat Hangers.

Edited October 4, 2022 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

On 8/11/2022 at 9:05 AM, KingOfHearts said:

The Jedi council had consequences for their ineptitude and in some ways (but very much not in all ways) redeemed themselves later. Their blindness to the truth and callous treatment of Anakin led to the rise of Darth Vader and the destruction of the Republic.

While the council was pretty stupid, I have a hard time having any problem with their treatment of Anakin, given that he was lying to them and breaking all their rules all along, long before he was a Master, given that he married Padme in secret before that. True, they didn't know he was lying to them all along, but it's hard to sympathize with all of Anakin's whining about them not trusting him when he knows he's been lying to them all along.

Really, Anakin is the Regina of the Star Wars saga. When he's first introduced, he's purely a bad guy. Then Lucas seemed to fall in love with his own creation, and soon he's related to or connected to half the other characters. At the very last second, he turns on the Emperor to save Luke, and suddenly he's such a hero that he gets into Force heaven (at least he died then instead of miraculously surviving and going on to be best friends with Luke, Leia, and the gang, with Leia being totally okay with him in spite of him having tortured her). When we get flashbacks of his past, he's the most special special who ever specialed, and yet they don't really appreciate him, so it's not really his fault that he turned evil. They didn't really trust or accept him (never mind that he was lying to them the whole time), so he had no choice but to turn evil.

[Camera One]

I have been watching "Rings of Power" (warning: thoughts below) and it reminded me again how effective the pilot of "Once Upon a Time" was.  In one hour, I cared about all the characters and they had nuance and complexity, with fun call-backs to a pre-existing universe.  "Rings of Power" could not do that for me with a two-episode opener (or really, with an entire season).  Emma was such a strong female protagonist but you could immediately sense a humanity behind her tough exterior.  On "Rings of Power", they had a very strong Galadriel, but she was so stoic and abrasive that it was difficult to care for her all season.  In some ways, she was written like Merida or Murderella.  

On 10/15/2022 at 10:00 AM, Shanna Marie said:

Really, Anakin is the Regina of the Star Wars saga. 

When you put it like that, Anakin does seem Regina-ish.  From reading fan comments, it does seem like a lot of the blame for his turning evil is placed on the Jedi council.  The Emperor is basically Anakin's Rumple.  At least there is a bit less victim blaming with Darth?  Was as much blame placed on Obi-Wan?  I recently rewatched the first two prequels, but I'm trying to watch the animated Clone Wars before the third prequel movie, so details are not as clear in my mind.  With the Obi-Wan series, one of the new villains

Spoiler

who was hurting/killing innocents was supposed to be sympathetic by the end when we find out she was one of the Younglings who escaped death and thus was out for revenge on Darth Vander.  And we were supposed to feel badly for her in the finale when we saw she couldn't bring herself to hurt Child Luke after kidnapping him.  That gave me bad "Once" vibes as well.

Edited October 16, 2022 by Camera One

[Melgaypet]

28 minutes ago, Camera One said:

When you put it like that, Anakin does seem Regina-ish.  From reading fan comments, it does seem like a lot of the blame for his turning evil is placed on the Jedi council.  The Emperor is basically Anakin's Rumple.

The Jedi Council didn't handle Anakin well, in my opinion, but I think the majority of the blame for Anakin's fall goes to Palpatine and Anakin himself.

I saw a youtube video months ago by a licensed therapist who theorized that Anakin had Borderline Personality Disorder. Which makes me think, does Regina? Some of the symptoms are:

• Intense fear of abandonment
• A pattern of unstable, intense relationships
• Periods of stress-related paranoia and loss of contact with reality
• Impulsive and risky behavior
• Wide moods swings lasting from a few hours to a few days
• Ongoing feelings of emptiness
• Inappropriate, intense anger

Quite a few seem to apply.

[Shanna Marie]

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

From reading fan comments, it does seem like a lot of the blame for his turning evil is placed on the Jedi council.  The Emperor is basically Anakin's Rumple.  At least there is a bit less victim blaming with Darth?  Was as much blame placed on Obi-Wan?

Obi-Wan blamed himself, but the thing with the Star Wars movies is that Lucas stopped doing Star Wars stuff after the prequels, so we didn't get to see how he might have retconned things if he'd done more things involving Anakin/Vader after he seems to have Mary-Sued the character. The Vader sightings between the prequels and the original trilogy were written by other people, so I don't think we got the Regina effect fully. I suspect if Lucas had done his own follow-up, we might have had more poor, sad, misunderstood Anakin, and it was all Obi-Wan and Padme's fault that he turned fully evil because they wouldn't accept his initial turn to evil.

The ongoing flashback format of Once allowed those writers to revise Regina's history on an ongoing basis as she took more focus in the show while also keeping her around in the present to be a real hero. Star Wars didn't get to go down that path because Lucas had already killed Vader before he went full Mary Sue with Anakin. It would have been like if Regina had been killed at the end of season 2 with the failsafe, so the only way they could show her was in flashbacks.

1 hour ago, Melgaypet said:

The Jedi Council didn't handle Anakin well, in my opinion, but I think the majority of the blame for Anakin's fall goes to Palpatine and Anakin himself.

I think one of the main issues is that they knew Anakin was a potential problem from the start, given that he was so powerful and was starting training so late after having had a troubled childhood and had formed family attachments -- and then they basically gave him to a student teacher to train. Obi-Wan had barely completed his own training, and suddenly he was stuck with the problem child who was a potential focus of prophecy. That was a disaster waiting to happen. Even if Obi-Wan was fully capable of handling the training, they were close enough in age for them to be like brothers and have a sense of rivalry. They at least needed some other more seasoned master involved. That might have prevented some of the issues that arose. Obi-Wan needed more backup than he had.

On a totally different note, over the last couple of weekends I've watched Snow White and the Huntsman and Huntsman: Winter War. They're not great movies, but I think the second is better. I was rather amused by the way they did a very Once-like mashup, so that the Huntsman from the Snow White story turns out to have been one of the kids from the Snow Queen story (though they did a bit of a gender flip, so that it was the girl who essentially had the shard of ice while the guy was the one left heartbroken).

The other thing that reminded me of Once was the weird romantic triangle and how it was resolved. It was similar to the Neal/Emma/Hook thing in that it was like they were setting something up and then it fizzled. But it was also the kind of random writing that was often in Once. I'll put this in spoiler tags because it gives away a lot of the movies.

Spoiler

There were two guys in the first movie, William, who was essentially the Prince from the fairy tale, and the Huntsman. William was Snow's childhood friend who was separated from her when the evil queen took over, and he's thought she was dead all this time, but as an adult he's been leading a guerilla insurrection against the queen. The Huntsman is a drunk still mourning his dead wife who gets hired by the queen to track down Snow, but he ends up switching sides and helping Snow when he finds out the queen lied to him and Snow offers him a reward. It's sort of set up for the Huntsman and Snow to have the kind of growing sexual tension that comes with going on a difficult journey together, except they don't bother developing it or doing anything with the situations that comes up. Like when they meet up with the dwarfs, Snow is goofing around and dancing with one of the dwarfs, but the Huntsman never cuts in to dance with her so they can have a Moment. There's no sense of rivalry or jealousy from the Huntsman when William finds them (when he learned Snow was alive and had escaped from the queen, he infiltrated the queen's search party to be able to protect her if they found her). The queen uses Snow's feelings for William to trick her into eating the apple. But nothing happens when William kisses her. It's the Huntsman's kiss that later saves her from the curse. It looks like they're setting it up to have the sequel be a triangle, but then Snow isn't even in the sequel, the Huntsman is maintaining a cairn dedicated to his dead wife early in the movie, and we learn that William is married to Snow. So, it seems that the Huntsman was able to have a True Love's Kiss with one woman while still in love with the memory of his wife, and after that she ended up marrying the guy the TLK didn't work with, though that's not so bad for her because he was the one who showed all the signs of actually loving her through his actions and emotions, even if his TLK didn't work. That all struck me as very Once-ish.

[CCTC]

I am pretty sure Anakin went evil for having to recite the dialog written for his love scenes with Natalie Portman (I cannot remember the character's name - might be time to rewatch the movies..).  Bad writing made him go to the dark side.

[KingOfHearts]

This looks like the opposite of the Dark Curse - instead of cursing the denizens of a fairy tale world into a small town, it's "cursing" real world inhabitants of a small town into a fairy tale. Giselle seems to be like a "nega-Regina" here.

It's also nice they're letting Idina finally sing in it.

Edited November 1, 2022 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

On 11/1/2022 at 9:46 AM, KingOfHearts said:

This looks like the opposite of the Dark Curse - instead of cursing the denizens of a fairy tale world into a small town, it's "cursing" real world inhabitants of a small town into a fairy tale.

She said life is not necessarily "easier" in fairytale land, since they have dragons and ogre rebellions.  It was mostly said as a joke here, but I really hoped that concept was going to be explored in 3B in flashbacks when everyone in Storybrooke was sent back.  But nope.  

The plot in the trailer sounds a bit like a mess, so I hope it actually makes sense.

Lesson seems to be 'magic comes with a price'?  Hopefully without a dearie.

Hopefully some of us will be able to watch it and review the movie here.  

Edited November 3, 2022 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

20 hours ago, Camera One said:

The plot in the trailer sounds a bit like a mess, so I hope it actually makes sense

Yeah, not really a fan of having both Giselle and Maya Rudolph's character both be villains. I'm sure we'll see the prince and Idina for five minutes at the beginning. Everyone is going to be so disappointed when they see how little of the budget will inevitably go into showing an animated Andalasia.

[Camera One]

I must say Edward's line in this short teaser/trailer was very apt, and works for "Once Upon a Time" too!  Minus the word "smart".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u18JHm49Fo

Edited November 12, 2022 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

On 11/12/2022 at 3:32 PM, Camera One said:

I must say Edward's line in this short teaser/trailer was very apt, and works for "Once Upon a Time" too!  Minus the word "smart".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u18JHm49Fo

I was happy to see it's a full musical with music by Alan Menken. 

[KingOfHearts]

On 11/2/2022 at 10:14 PM, Camera One said:

Hopefully some of us will be able to watch it and review the movie here.  

Now that it is released, you can expect my 10-page critical essay within the coming weeks.

Edited November 18, 2022 by KingOfHearts

[KingOfHearts]

I was expecting Disenchanted to be a soulless direct-to-DVD cash grab, but it was way better than it had any right to be. It's a crime that it didn't hit theaters. There was so much heart put into it with a great attention to detail. It kept the essence of the original but also felt like a natural progression from it. At a high level, it played less like a parody and more like a straight fairy tale story. It had the quirky charm of cheesy Disney movies from the 90s/2000s. The Alan Menken music was immaculate and borrowed cues from the original appropriately while bringing in some lovely new songs. (They weren't exactly catchy but were still pleasant to listen to.)

This film does share a lot of similar story elements to Once Upon a Time. If you miss the show, I highly recommend watching it. It's even got Brigette Hales as the screenplay writer, which I thought was funny. (That might not be in its favor though, lol)

Major spoilers below.

Spoiler

I respected the Giselle/Morgan relationship being the emotional lynchpin of the movie. It was very reminiscent of the Snow/Emma relationship, down to Morgan constantly complaining about wanting to go back to New York (lol). Giselle and Robert having a new baby and Morgan feeling like she's not the "real" daughter of a fairy tale princess reminded me a lot of Emma and Snowflake. Giselle trying to relate to Morgan but failing felt very much like Snow. The scene at the end where Giselle calls Morgan a "true daughter of Andalasia" and sings to her made me wish we had more scenes like that with Emma/Snow.

The actors were having an absolute blast as their "fairy tale" selves. Amy Adams totally killed it as the evil stepmother and did a great job switching between her and Giselle. I do wish they hadn't spoiled this in the trailers. The camp worked remarkably well. Amy also sold the hell out of Giselle's death scene.

Maya Rudolph was a bit of a miscast here. Some of her lines are funny, but her character is never that believably evil. (Maybe that was the point?)

The villain song battle was completely unexpected but awesome. Loved them fighting over who followed the villain tropes better.

Robert gets sidelined quite a bit, unfortunately. His character is very bland now. It's pretty clear the writers weren't sure what to do with him. 

Physically stopping the clock from striking the last stroke of midnight was clever. Very fairy-tale-ish to find a loophole like that.

Ruby was channeling the same energy as Karen from Mean Girls, and it was great. I enjoyed the knock-off Plastics in this film.

Giselle basically described every season of OUAT: "Magic fixes everything... or breaks everything. But then you find more magic to undo the magic, and everything is fine again."

[Camera One]

Minor spoilers below (just thoughts on the first 50 min or so - I will read your full review afterwards):

I watched the first 50 min last night, and it was fine, though not as engaging or "magical" as I had hoped.  Though it was starting to get more interesting when I had to stop.  I had been excited to hear we would get some new Alan Menken songs, but they didn't really grab me on first listen and some of the vocals seemed a little muted and the choreography wasn't as fun as the original.  

I felt a "Once Upon a Time" pilot vibe when they drove over a bridge en route to the small town, like Emma and Henry driving over a bridge en route to Storybrooke.  The town itself had less of a atmosphere than Storybrooke, but of course that was due to Storybrooke being a little cold and creepy, being under a Curse.  The Regina-equivalent was sort of entertaining, but we didn't really see her sway on the town.  I think they needed to flesh out the town a little more before magic came.  We only really got to "meet" the villain, her minions and the "Prince".

Though at the same time, I think the "normal" our-world problems in the premise was a bit tired, so I was glad when magic came.  It felt a little like an obligatory Snowing subplot when they had nothing interesting to write for them, and they were trying to recapture the "magic" while creating some contrived conflicts, not fully successfully.  It was hard to believe in Giselle's optimism after so many years.  The bratty teenager trope was a little annoying.  Though I'm also not sure what I would have done to fix this.  

It was a little jarring to see everyone looking a bit older (seems to be par for the course nowadays with so many revivals).  On the one hand, it's nice to see "old friends" but at the same time, it's hard to avoid being distracted by the sad passage of time.  I haven't watched "Enchanted" for ages, though, so I don't know if rewatching would have increased enjoyment or not.  I think I will rewatch it after this.

It feels like the basic premise is pretty simplistic, with a "all magic comes with a price" lesson, and that real life is hard and needs work, or something equally trite.  A major difference I think in this "world" compared to "Once Upon a Time" is that Andalasia really is a fairy tale world where happily ever after does come true, whereas the "Once" Enchanted Forest was a bleak world full of suffering akin to Medieval Europe.  In those ways, it could explain why Giselle would have such ideals.  So does that mean all stepmothers in Adalasia must be evil, or something?  And everything must succumb to the fairy tale tropes?  

Overall, though, the film so far seems competent and did not feel like a made-for-TV production.  I'm hoping the second half of the movie will be fun, since the last 5 minutes I watched did have more of a "spark".

Edited November 19, 2022 by Camera One

[Shanna Marie]

I enjoyed Disenchanted. It was a lot of fun, and the cast was excellent (and seemed to be having a blast), but I did have some issues, a lot of which were similar to my issues with OUAT.

For one thing, a big part of the appeal of the original premise was the culture clash, getting to see the characters from the animated fairytale world dealing with our world. We got a bit of commentary on our world through seeing it through their eyes, and we got to see how modern New Yorkers reacted to their wide-eyed innocence and idealism. That's pretty much gone in the sequel (the way Once barely used it). Giselle gets to be a bit weird early, but it's not as though they're using the culture clash to show us suburban small-town America. She's just weird, and they don't even react to her weirdness. And then after the spell, everyone's in the same "world," so there's no clash.

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

The Regina-equivalent was sort of entertaining, but we didn't really see her sway on the town.

She was so weirdly in sway, with them pointing out stuff like her son always being elected prince even when he had two broken legs, but it's totally not rigged, that I kept expecting to find out that there was a Regina/Storybrooke thing going on, and the reason Giselle was drawn to this town was that it actually was a storybook kingdom transported to our world. Then Giselle and this woman would clash because there were now people from two different magical worlds in the same place, but coming at it from a different perspective. When this woman was magical after the spell, I thought that was what was going on for a while.

2 hours ago, Camera One said:

It felt a little like an obligatory Snowing subplot when they had nothing interesting to write for them, and they were trying to recapture the "magic" while creating some contrived conflicts, not fully successfully.  It was hard to believe in Giselle's optimism after so many years.  The bratty teenager trope was a little annoying.  Though I'm also not sure what I would have done to fix this. 

I think some of this stems from a weakness in the original movie that's always bothered me. That movie supposedly interrogated the instalove fairy tale trope, mocking Giselle for being prepared to marry the prince she just met, without even any dating, but then she ended up doing essentially the same thing. Robert was the first guy she met in New York, and she just attached to him automatically. They didn't seem to have anything at all in common. They had very different outlooks on life, different values, different interests. I was actually kind of disappointed in the ending because where I thought they were going with it was that she'd run into Edward in New York, try dating him, and then be able to go through with the marriage after defeating his stepmother, but with the marriage on more solid ground this time. Meanwhile, she'd teach Robert to be more romantic. She and Edward were a much better match. When we were seeing their parallel stories in New York while he was looking for her, I felt like they were showing us that they belonged together. Then when he found her and they tried dating and she was "meh" about him, it didn't really make sense to me.

So then now we flash forward to their future, and it seemed like they were still showing us that she and Robert were incompatible. She's not happy in this world. They had to upend the rest of the family's lives to move her to a place that reminds her of her land. Normally I don't side with the bratty teenager whining about having to move (I'm an army brat, so have little sympathy for drama about having to move), but I had to agree with her here. She had to give up her home, life, and friends to start over in a small town (been there, it's not fun) to appease her fish-out-of-water stepmother, and Robert has to rearrange his life, too. It sounded like Giselle was the only one who wanted this. We never really saw "normal" for her and Robert, so we still don't know how that relationship works, what they have in common, what they talk about, what they want, etc.

However, Amy Adams is fantastic, especially when she was switching back and forth between Giselle and "evil stepmother." For a moment or two, there was no dialogue, no action, but you could still see the character changes on her face, even without her really changing expression. It was very subtle, but distinct. Evil Giselle makes me wish I could have seen the Central Park production of Into the Woods in which Amy Adams played the witch.

And I covet that blue dress with the peacock feather collar.

I liked the music, but I felt like the songs were too specific to this story. In the first movie, the songs worked as good songs even out of context. These songs were all about this specific situation and story.

[KingOfHearts]

4 hours ago, Camera One said:

It was hard to believe in Giselle's optimism after so many years.  The bratty teenager trope was a little annoying.  Though I'm also not sure what I would have done to fix this.  

It was a little jarring to see everyone looking a bit older (seems to be par for the course nowadays with so many revivals).  On the one hand, it's nice to see "old friends" but at the same time, it's hard to avoid being distracted by the sad passage of time.

The time gap was a little jarring. It seemed more like Giselle had only been Morgan's stepmother for a matter of months or only a couple years - not ten years. Their relationship was not as established as you would think after so much time. Even though I didn't like the changes to Robert's character, it's believable he would have mellowed out after being married to Giselle for a decade. I was surprised they waited so long to finally have a baby (I didn't hear anything about fertility issues, unless I missed it). But then again, the baby is so inconsequential to the plot that it may as well have not been there.

Quote

It sounded like Giselle was the only one who wanted this. We never really saw "normal" for her and Robert, so we still don't know how that relationship works, what they have in common, what they talk about, what they want, etc.

It's pretty easy to speculate why they moved to suburbia, but the movie never outright says why they do it. It seemed like a poor decision for everyone involved. We never get to see Morgan's friends or explore the life she's missing - unlike Inside Out, where we are shown what Riley misses after moving to San Francisco. We don't really get to see much of a "normal" for the characters before the inciting incident. 

[Shanna Marie]

37 minutes ago, KingOfHearts said:

It's pretty easy to speculate why they moved to suburbia, but the movie never outright says why they do it.

During the storybook intro, there's a mention of the apartment being too small after they had the baby, but there are larger apartments in Manhattan, and if they could afford a house that size with a huge yard within commuting distance of Manhattan and pay for extensive renovations, they surely could have afforded a 3-bedroom apartment. Then there was a mention of Giselle not being happy in general, then she found this town that reminded her of home. That made it sound like the move was entirely for her. Robert had to make a long commute that required getting up at 5 a.m. and Morgan had to leave the city and all her friends and change schools in the middle of the school year, so the only one really happy about the move was Giselle. Seeing more "normal" would have helped. Was the strain between Morgan and Giselle just about the move, or were there already problems, and the move was Giselle's attempt to wallpaper over them? What was Giselle unhappy about? Was she not fitting in, feeling too crowded, no one in the park joining her production numbers anymore?

[Camera One]

Beware: some spoilers below (the major ones I will spoiler tag).

I finally got through a pile of work, so I was able to finish the movie, and as much as I wanted to like it, I will have to conclude it was a mixed bag.  It wasn't bad per se, but it was lacking in significant ways.  I wasn't fully engaged nor emotionally invested, or even fully entertained.  The plot didn't pull together, and what happened was either predictable or felt random.

The whole climax with

Spoiler

magic being sucked out of Andalasia which was crumbling into pieces was straight out of the end of Season 6.  The showdown between Giselle and the Evil Queen character felt lame.  I agree she didn't really seem that evil, so I'm not sure what they were trying to go for.  The whole memory tree thing and with Giselle and Morgan didn't get to me emotionally either, and felt like one of those kumbaya "Once" solutions.

And then the credits rolled, and I saw the writer, and well, it figures.

I did like the second half of the movie a bit more, and I think it had to do with Amy Adam's transition to the Evil Stepmother.  She did a good job with that, and had a few sporadically good lines.

6 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

For one thing, a big part of the appeal of the original premise was the culture clash, getting to see the characters from the animated fairytale world dealing with our world. That's pretty much gone in the sequel (the way Once barely used it).

That is very true.  That was the most original and fun aspect of the first movie. 

This one's angle was to play with the idea of fairy tale tropes being transplanted into our world, which was sort of fun, but even that concept wasn't fully fleshed out.  Once magic came to the real world, no one really noticed.  They just acted like they were under a spell.  Except for the electrical appliances singing at the beginning, they were basically living out historical times in a quaint town.  No one was driving anymore and it was the 18th century all over again with horse drawn carriages and servants wearing powdered wigs.

Quote

They had to upend the rest of the family's lives to move her to a place that reminds her of her land. Normally I don't side with the bratty teenager whining about having to move (I'm an army brat, so have little sympathy for drama about having to move), but I had to agree with her here. She had to give up her home, life, and friends to start over in a small town (been there, it's not fun) to appease her fish-out-of-water stepmother, and Robert has to rearrange his life, too. It sounded like Giselle was the only one who wanted this. We never really saw "normal" for her and Robert, so we still don't know how that relationship works, what they have in common, what they talk about, what they want, etc.

Seeing more "normal" would have helped. Was the strain between Morgan and Giselle just about the move, or were there already problems, and the move was Giselle's attempt to wallpaper over them? What was Giselle unhappy about? Was she not fitting in, feeling too crowded, no one in the park joining her production numbers anymore?

4 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

It's pretty easy to speculate why they moved to suburbia, but the movie never outright says why they do it. It seemed like a poor decision for everyone involved. We never get to see Morgan's friends or explore the life she's missing - unlike Inside Out, where we are shown what Riley misses after moving to San Francisco. We don't really get to see much of a "normal" for the characters before the inciting incident. 

Maybe that's why I wasn't emotionally invested in these characters, because the "real life" premise was so sloppily drawn.  Although I thought Morgan was annoying, I too felt it was only Giselle who wanted to move to Monroeville.  Clearly, Robert didn't.  Robert wasn't even a full character in this movie.  He was given the C plot after the spell began.  I can't see Giselle still being this wide-eyed 10 years later.

In the later seasons of "Once", the real-life emotion grounding was weakly developed, so it became stock characters responding to magical mumbo-jumbo.

Quote

But then again, the baby is so inconsequential to the plot that it may as well have not been there.

That is true.  Speaking of inconsequential to the plot, for a bit there, I thought they were going to have Morgan and that high school guy become the main focus,

Spoiler

to be crowned the king and queen of the festival.  I even thought he would have to give a true love's kiss or something when Morgan got the sleeping potion. 

Overall, I'm not sure why that guy was there either.

Spoiler

At the end, if Morgan could use the broken wand, why couldn't Giselle?  Because she was "dying"?  I didn't understand that, and it took me out of the moment which was supposed to be such a big deal.

The clock turning thing was a variation of what happened at the end of 

Spoiler

Mary Poppins 2

The singing reminded me a little of the "Once" musical episode.  There was even a line about finding a song inside of you, or something to that effect.  

Edited November 20, 2022 by Camera One

[Camera One]

I was thinking about how Giselle can sing and people around her joined and didn't think it was strange.  Maybe all along, there was a bit of magic from Andalasia that accompanied her when she sang which had that effect on people.  

The memory tree concept could have benefitted from a flashback, so we could have seen what it meant to a young Giselle.

[Shanna Marie]

26 minutes ago, Camera One said:

I was thinking about how Giselle can sing and people around her joined and didn't think it was strange.  Maybe all along, there was a bit of magic from Andalasia that accompanied her when she sang which had that effect on people.

I think that was what they implied, that everyone from Andalasia was magical in some way.

Spoiler

That's why she was dying and couldn't use the wand at the end. All the magic was being sucked out to create the fantasy world, which was killing her and everything else from Andalasia.

16 hours ago, Camera One said:

Once magic came to the real world, no one really noticed.  They just acted like they were under a spell.  Except for the electrical appliances singing at the beginning, they were basically living out historical times in a quaint town.  No one was driving anymore and it was the 18th century all over again with horse drawn carriages and servants wearing powdered wigs.

I think we needed someone outside the spell to comment on it. In the first movie, we had Robert remarking on everyone joining in the production number while no one else seemed to think anything was odd, like they were under Giselle's spell. Instead, no one thought it was at all odd because they were part of it.

That's why it might have been fun to play with the premise in the small town. In Manhattan, people are pretty jaded. They might not look twice at a musical production number in Central Park because they'd figure it was a movie shoot or a flash mob. It would stand out more in a small town where people pay attention to their neighbors. It was weird that the workers in the house didn't really react to Giselle's production number before the spell. She's singing and dancing around the house, and they neither join in, like with the Central Park bit in the first movie, nor act really surprised. They show some mild surprise, but not the way you'd expect someone to react when someone starts singing and dancing around the house, especially if they heard the music suddenly coming from nowhere. Though I guess it would also have been weird if she was doing all that without any music they could hear.

I couldn't help but wonder about the people under the spell who didn't make it to work that day. There was the musical trio that were the commuters (all Broadway folks, including the Broadway Aladdin Genie) who were in town. What happened when they didn't make it to work in the city? Did the train still go through town? Did they see the changed town? Was it like Storybrooke and the town just disappeared? I was distracted thinking about how it all worked. Could someone have left town? What would have happened if they had?

[Camera One]

28 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I think we needed someone outside the spell to comment on it. In the first movie, we had Robert remarking on everyone joining in the production number while no one else seemed to think anything was odd, like they were under Giselle's spell. Instead, no one thought it was at all odd because they were part of it.  That's why it might have been fun to play with the premise in the small town. In Manhattan, people are pretty jaded. 

It was weird that the workers in the house didn't really react to Giselle's production number before the spell. She's singing and dancing around the house, and they neither join in, like with the Central Park bit in the first movie, nor act really surprised.

I guess Robert was more jaded than the others, so Giselle's magic didn't make him dance and sing?  

Yes, that's why I thought it was a bit inconsistent with the repair people at the house.

28 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I couldn't help but wonder about the people under the spell who didn't make it to work that day. There was the musical trio that were the commuters (all Broadway folks, including the Broadway Aladdin Genie) who were in town. What happened when they didn't make it to work in the city? Did the train still go through town? Did they see the changed town? Was it like Storybrooke and the town just disappeared? I was distracted thinking about how it all worked. Could someone have left town? What would have happened if they had?

I thought it was funny to see those commuters again.  Momentarily in my mind, I was wondering what would happen if they missed work, but those other questions didn't enter my mind.  I guess the practicalities of how everything worked wasn't thought out, which is par for the course for "Once Upon a Time".  

I wonder if the writing would have been approached differently if it had been a theatrical release.  I was looking at IMDB and Brigitte Hales wrote the screenplay while "story by" gave credit to J. David Stem and David N. Weiss.  The other two worked on Shrek 2, but mostly had TV credits as well.  The movie was in development since 2010, so they probably went through many variations of the story before they decided on this one.

I mean, it was no worse than some of the recent Disney revivals/remakes that were sent to theatres.

On another note, I watched the movie with the misconception that the girl was the same actress as in the original movie, so I thought it was neat they got everyone back.  But now I know they picked a younger actress since they needed someone who could pass as a teenager.

One of the lyrics in the double villain song was amusing, about how there couldn't be a story with both Maleficent and Cruella.  I would think that's a reference to "Once" but I'm not sure if the lyricist Stephen Schwartz would have watched that show.

I am listening to the soundtrack again on Youtube and thinking about which "Once" character could sing each song and have it make sense.  

Edited November 20, 2022 by Camera One

[Camera One]

It looks like there are two deleted/unused songs on the soundtrack.  One was a song for Robert and the commuters called "Hard Times for Heroes".  The Asian lady commuter sings that she was once a warrior, which is weird.  Did the people in the town get fake memories too?  There was also another song for Morgan and the popular high school guy ("Something Different This Year").  

[KingOfHearts]

8 hours ago, Camera One said:

But now I know they picked a younger actress since they needed someone who could pass as a teenager.

I did hear though the original actress makes a cameo as one of the villagers who tells Giselle the festival was that night, which I thought was cool.

Morgan seems much more like a main character than Giselle, but she doesn't get much agency until she ...

Spoiler

... gets banished to Andalasia.

Giselle gets a lot of screentime and focus, but she doesn't get any character development throughout the film. (Which is a major departure from the original.) She realizes she screwed up with the spell, but doesn't seem to learn the moral lesson, which I guess is similar to Ariel in The Little Mermaid. Everything that happens seems to service Morgan's character more than Giselle's. Giselle already appreciated Morgan at the beginning of the film and doesn't really learn how to interact with her better. Everything kind of just falls on Morgan, who accepts herself as a "true daughter of Andalasia." 

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

Morgan seems much more like a main character than Giselle, but she doesn't get much agency until she ...

Yes, it's hard for the characters to get any development the way it's set up. 

Spoiler

Morgan was basically under the spell as a "happy" stepdaughter who loves housework until she fell into the well.  Giselle had moments of self-awareness once the spell got going, where she regretted her actions, but as you said, they never really completed her "lesson".  Which was realizing she should be happy with what she has, I guess, and magic isn't a magical solution to all?  Since it was such a trite lesson, I guess I didn't miss it being spelled out.  Giselle did love Morgan as a daughter since the beginning, and it was Morgan who felt left out when the baby was declared a true daughter of Andalasia.  

Maybe it would have been more interesting if we focused on how Nancy got used to living in Andalasia.  Pip said in the prologue that after happily-ever-after,  nothing happened again.  So I guess Edward and Nancy never had any conflict?  They just had an "uneventful" life fending off ogres and dragons?

I was reading a review that criticized how Amy Adams couldn't pull off the young bright eyed ingenue anymore.  As good as her performance, it was indeed more of a stretch due to her age, and trying to do that again seemed like an attempt to recapture that aspect of the original.  Maybe the story could have shown Giselle acting like a "normal" human after years of being in New York, and she saw herself as middle aged and couldn't handle it, and that could be why she casted the spell, which would turn her not back into the young carefree princess, but into a jaded stepmother?  In that case, Morgan could be the one with a level head and help save Giselle and make her realize/accept they still love her as much as ever.

Edited November 21, 2022 by Camera One

[tennisgurl]

The evil vs evil song was the highlight of the movie for me, Amy and Maya were just having an absolute blast being evil. The line about how no one wants a fairy tale with Maleficent AND Cruella made me laugh out loud. Yeah, its almost like having a million villains in one story is really annoying and clogs up your story or something. I will never complain about seeing Cruella though, the most gloriously evil villain we ever had. 

I thought the movie was fun overall, not as good as the first one but it was a good time, I would have liked to have the chance to see it in the theater. I thought some aspects of it could have been explored more, like Robert's apparent midlife crisis or the magic draining out of the fairytale land, but I liked the focus on Morgan and Giselle's relationship and how Morgan is her daughter in every way that matters even if its not by blood. Unlike with Henry and Regina and the retcons about how Regina was totally the best mom ever, it felt earned. I think that the reason Robert and Giselle left New York and went to the suburbs was that they felt like they were in a rut, they felt burned out, disconnected with their eldest daughter and overworked between work and their baby, and they wanted a fresh start. I don't think that's always a great reason to move, most of those problems exists anywhere you happen to live, but I can understand it. 

There were definitely a lots of obvious Once parallels, the move from New York to a small town, the fairytale world coming to the "real" world and the fish out of water hijinks, the queen bee who becomes an evil queen, the focus on mother/daughter relationships, all that good stuff. I missed some of the fish out of water stuff that made the first movie so fun, I would have liked it if Morgan and Robert maybe ended up in the fairytale world and had to save it and get home, like Emma in the Enchanted Forrest in season two, and now they were the fish out of water the way Giselle was in the first movie, but even if I wish they have done some things differently, it was a lot of fun and scratched that fairytale itch that isn't being scratched much now. 

[KingOfHearts]

3 hours ago, Camera One said:

Maybe the story could have shown Giselle acting like a "normal" human after years of being in New York, and she saw herself as middle aged and couldn't handle it, and that could be why she casted the spell, which would turn her not back into the young carefree princess, but into a jaded stepmother? 

I was thinking about the same thing. I thought they were going to go into this direction with the "Disenchanted" title. Maybe Nancy and Edward come visit, making Giselle feel jealous and jaded at her own life. Or maybe Morgan feels like she can't live up to Giselle's expectations or believe things would be better if they were a fairy tale, so she casts the spell instead. 

Quote

The evil vs evil song was the highlight of the movie for me, Amy and Maya were just having an absolute blast being evil. The line about how no one wants a fairy tale with Maleficent AND Cruella made me laugh out loud. Yeah, its almost like having a million villains in one story is really annoying and clogs up your story or something. I will never complain about seeing Cruella though, the most gloriously evil villain we ever had. 

Giselle as an evil stepmother worked so much better than Snow as an evil queen in the S4 finale. The stepmother just had so many good lines that didn't make her just generic evil. I just don't see how Giselle being an evil stepmother really serves the narrative other than upping the stakes.

Spoiler

(Which they did twice later - "Oh no! Now Andalasia is dying!" and then, "Oh no! Now Giselle is dying too!")

Edited November 21, 2022 by KingOfHearts

[Shanna Marie]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

I just don't see how Giselle being an evil stepmother really serves the narrative other than upping the stakes.

I think it was to point out the dark side of the fairytale existence. She wished to have a fairytale life, like back home, because she thought that was what was making her unhappy, and she turned the town into a fairytale kingdom. But she hadn't thought about all sides of the fairytale life, like the dragon or giant, or the fact that she was a stepmother, and that meant in a fairytale life she'd be wicked.

I guess it works as a metaphor for the person who's never happy where they are because they're nostalgic for the last place. I had a friend like that. When we lived in the same place, she hated it there and thought the last place was the ideal. Then we both moved away and kept in touch, and she hated the new place and loved the place where we'd lived. Then she moved to a new place and wrote poetry about how great the last place was, not remembering how miserable she'd been when she'd lived there. Giselle seems to have had a generalized dissatisfaction with life that she blamed on not being in Andalasia. Her first solution was to move to a place that reminded her of Andalasia, but then things were just as imperfect there as they'd been in New York, so she cast the spell and it made everything perfect -- except it also hit her with the negative things she'd forgotten about life in Andalasia.

Though this would have worked better if we'd had a stronger sense of what life was like before the move, had established life better after the move before Giselle got desperate enough to cast the spell, and if the resolution wasn't based so much on Morgan changing her attitude about Giselle. It was Giselle whose attitude needed to be fixed and who needed to learn a lesson, but the resolution wasn't about Giselle learning to be happy where she was. And then we didn't really see how things had changed other than that other people were working harder to fit into the changes Giselle wanted in her life.

The other thing this movie reminded me of was Wandavision, which was also about an unhappy person turning a whole town and its residents into her own fantasy world. Except there, although Wanda was presented with some sympathy, she was clearly in the wrong for messing with other people like that, and it showed the horrible impact on other people in the town to be turned into pawns in her fantasy. It wasn't just "everyone thinks they had a funny dream."

[Camera One]

5 hours ago, KingOfHearts said:

I just don't see how Giselle being an evil stepmother really serves the narrative other than upping the stakes.

The evil stepmother stuff was the most entertaining part of this movie, but I agree.  A lot of it was just for the sake of fun, not really adding to the story or character development. 

Spoiler

Giselle looked Morgan up in the tower for no good reason.  And then later, she just decided she wanted to be Queen, which was random.  The whole festival didn't have a point, either, and neither did Robert's hero quest.

Snow as The Evil Queen wasn't that interesting because it was a straight-up role reversal.  Regina played the Bandit Snow role and vice versa, and we had already seen that a thousand times before. 

[Camera One]

I was just thinking what "price" Rumple would extract from Giselle to give her that wand and scroll, LOL.  He would have loved extracting all that magic from Andalasia, maybe to power the Hat so the stars would align?  

[KingOfHearts]

17 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

The other thing this movie reminded me of was Wandavision, which was also about an unhappy person turning a whole town and its residents into her own fantasy world. Except there, although Wanda was presented with some sympathy, she was clearly in the wrong for messing with other people like that, and it showed the horrible impact on other people in the town to be turned into pawns in her fantasy. It wasn't just "everyone thinks they had a funny dream."

Disney is really into witches cursing small town America, aren't they?

I wish we had more modern references and a mix of cultures (al a Shrek 2) so it wasn't just a generic fairy tale for two-thirds of the movie. Not as realistic aesthetically as Storybrooke, but something that's more just influenced by Andalasia rather than being just a copy/paste of it. Maybe as the film gets closer to the climax, things like electronic appliances start disappearing and it's not just Giselle who starts changing drastically in personality. 

Quote

I was just thinking what "price" Rumple would extract from Giselle to give her that wand and scroll, LOL.  He would have loved extracting all that magic from Andalasia, maybe to power the Hat so the stars would align?  

Now I just imagine Rumple coming back to Andalasia "politely" asking Nancy and Edward about what happened to his wand.

Edited November 22, 2022 by KingOfHearts

[Camera One]

I've listened to the songs a few more times now and they're growing on me.  I expected slightly more impressive lyrics from Stephen Schwartz, though.

When Giselle came downstairs the morning after the spell, and Morgan started to sing and "do" housework (really badly, I must say, sweeping the dust under the rug?), Giselle didn't think it was a problem that Morgan wasn't going to school anymore?

I was also wondering if Giselle ever took Robert and Morgan on a vacation to Andalasia.  There didn't seem to be price for going back and forth.  Did they ever consider moving to Andalasia instead of the suburbs? 

Maybe in another 15 years, when the actors are even older, the majority of the film could take place in Andalasia.  "Re-enchanted", it will be called.

Edited November 23, 2022 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

On 11/22/2022 at 8:06 PM, Camera One said:

I've listened to the songs a few more times now and they're growing on me.  I expected slightly more impressive lyrics from Stephen Schwartz, though.

I saw someone online complain that there was too much singing, which I thought was funny.

In the realm of fantasy tv, Rings of Power definitely does not scratch that OUAT itch. It does, however, follow the annoying Lost-style "mystery box" storytelling the OUAT writers were so addicted to. I really hate how obvious they would get holding their cards to their chest, with characters being unnecessarily cryptic, whispering when they don't need to, being interrupted by something as they're just about to reveal something important, etc. Rings of Power follows similar tropes. It's like the writers had one or two good plot twists in mind but needed to write eight episodes of story to go along with it.

The dialogue for Rings of Power is also as bad if not worse than OUAT in some cases. It's George Lucas levels of horrible. The show's visuals are stellar, but the writing is very incompetent. Prequels are more about making the "how something happened" more interesting than "what happened". For example, while everyone knew little Anakin was going to turn into Dark Vader, the worldbuilding and how it transpired were both interesting. Rings of Power does not really bring a whole lot to the table in terms of expanding the parts of Tolkien's universe that have made it to the screen.

[Camera One]

1 hour ago, KingOfHearts said:

In the realm of fantasy tv, Rings of Power definitely does not scratch that OUAT itch. It does, however, follow the annoying Lost-style "mystery box" storytelling the OUAT writers were so addicted to. I really hate how obvious they would get holding their cards to their chest, with characters being unnecessarily cryptic, whispering when they don't need to, being interrupted by something as they're just about to reveal something important, etc. Rings of Power follows similar tropes. It's like the writers had one or two good plot twists in mind but needed to write eight episodes of story to go along with it.

The dialogue for Rings of Power is also as bad if not worse than OUAT in some cases. It's George Lucas levels of horrible. The show's visuals are stellar, but the writing is very incompetent. 

That is exactly what I thought of "Rings of Power" too.  It was disappointingly underwhelming and I agree it has some of the same writing flaws as "Once", relying on a twists and spending more time teasing than character development, logical plot or worldbuilding, despite its beauty. 

The showrunners were inexperienced and it showed in the writing and pacing. Their interviews reminded me of A&E's interviews and felt similarly arrogant and dismissive of criticism.  Galadriel reminded me of a character like Merida right from the first episode.  I am still impressed how "Once" created such a strong female character as Emma, who was tough in the pilot but not in an abrasive way and with vulnerability (though a lot of credit also goes to the actress).  For its huge budget, the "Rings of Power" pilot didn't have a quarter of the charm of the "Once" pilot.  Personally, I still love "Lost", but none of the mystery boxes wannabes that have come after have compared to it.  "Rings of Power" had Tolkien's world.  Why did it need to rely on mystery boxes is beyond me.

Edited November 24, 2022 by Camera One

[KingOfHearts]

9 hours ago, Camera One said:

That is exactly what I thought of "Rings of Power" too.  It was disappointingly underwhelming and I agree it has some of the same writing flaws as "Once", relying on a twists and spending more time teasing than character development, logical plot or worldbuilding, despite its beauty. 

I actually don't mind the slower pace. It's what I expected from the LoTR universe. But if it's going to take its time, it needs to spend time on the things you mentioned - worldbuilding, character development, etc. Andor has been doing a fantastic job at that though Star Wars fans have complained about it too being too slow. RoP's character conversations are just full of fluff that sounds like someone is trying really hard to write lofty literature.

Quote

 Personally, I still love "Lost", but none of the mystery boxes wannabes that have come after have compared to it.  "Rings of Power" had Tolkien's world.  Why did it need to rely on mystery boxes is beyond me.

I still think Lost did the best at mystery boxes, but as you said - there was no reason for it in Rings of Power. Who cares...

Spoiler

... who Sauron is? 

It doesn't even really feel like Game of Thrones either, which is weird. 

Quote

  I am still impressed how "Once" created such a strong female character as Emma, who was tough in the pilot but not in an abrasive way and with vulnerability (though a lot of credit also goes to the actress).

What happened to Emma was a little disheartening. She started out as a strong female heroine but over time got beaten down into a husk by S6.

Edited November 24, 2022 by KingOfHearts

[tennisgurl]

I was very disappointed by Rings of Power, and I have been one of the people have defended a lot of its creative choices. Its gorgeous to look at, but the dialogue is so awkward, even though the actors are really trying, it feels like someone trying to hard to sound like Tolkien and failing. It sounds so unnatural, especially when the show is so full of people dropping exposition at us. It also drags so much, I am fine with a slow pace, especially for a show like this, but it just feels like its meandering, like its treading water until we can hit the prequel "Oh my God he's Sauron!” types of twists. Andor, on the other hand, is a prequel really done right. Its slow paced, but never feels meandering, it always feels like its building up to big things, building tension, world building, and working on character development. You aren't just waiting for the next big thing to happen, your getting context that makes what we already know richer. We even get a big prequel twist near the end, but it works because it feels thematically significant. 

As we all know, once was absolutely obsessed with "big" moments and uninterested in the smaller ones, so we ended up with lots of padding and useless wandering around until we got to the "big" moments, except its hard to care because it wasn't build up very much and we all know that the fall out wont be explored, we'll just head towards the next big thing while sitting through a bunch of time wasting.

Edited December 4, 2022 by tennisgurl

[LeDucDiableBleu]

On 9/1/2022 at 11:36 PM, Camera One said:

I watched "Descendants 2" and it made "Once" look like a masterpiece.  It astounds me how Disney has all these iconic characters and worlds, and there have been so few mashups, which are usually of low quality.

In this movie, there's Ursula's bratty daughter and Hook's bratty son and Gaston's idiotic son, but that's pretty much the extent of the connection.  I think the first "Descendants" movie was a little better because they actually had Maleficent as part of the story manipulating her daughter, with the Evil Queen, Jafar and Cruella frozen in some "museum". 

But the worldbuilding was so bad in "Descendants 2" where an off-camera Ursula is supposedly running a bad diner and off-camera Tremaine is treating her granddaughter like a servant on some island that the "heroes" ignore.  

And that's without mentioning the Halloween store quality costumes and the overproduced songs where you can't even imagine the same voice coming out of the actors.

That's why I was sort of looking forward to A&E and Brigitte Hale's failed series "Epic", so we could get another attempt at a fairy tale show.

I think "Once Upon a Time" became too much of a mess to get spinoffs in the same universe.  I can't think of a prequel since they already gave bad origin stories to a lot of the more intriguing aspects of the series (like the Dark Curse).  A sequel set in The Good Queen's kingdom of kingdoms would be a total mess.

The first Descendants film was to set up the world and premise of the series, which as a whole is focused on the children of the heroes and villains. Descendants 2 really took off with that in mind and the parents are strictly relegated to secondary position in the story and the viewer isn't supposed to be thinking of them. That's why Ursula and Tremaine are off camera. At the end, all the drama with Uma, Ben and Mal happens and is resolved while Belle and the Beast watch from the sidelines. I believe Disney wanted to do a couple more movies out of the series but unfortunately Cameron Boyce passed away after they filmed the 3rd. I'm not sure if they'll do another live action film. I know it's kind of hokey and cheesy but I do have a special place in my heart for the Descendants series because for about 5 years it dominated my daughter's attention, and she has been dressed as Uma (twice) and Mal for Halloween.

I think the series discusses the themes of immigration and segregation very well and brings up salient points that are easy for kids to understand. I also thought in Descendants 3, the storyline with Audrey being dumped by Ben and becoming evil was really good. When she says "where's my happy ending?" I kind of got chills.

[Shanna Marie]

On 11/30/2022 at 1:17 PM, tennisgurl said:

it just feels like its meandering, like its treading water until we can hit the prequel "Oh my God he's Sauron!: types of twists.

I wonder how much of that is from viewer expectations, though. I've read LOTR multiple times, but haven't delved into all the related lore, so I had no idea there was any mystery about which character would turn out to be Sauron. I just figured the mystery was where he was, so when they found him, it would be obvious, and that meant I wasn't looking for Sauron in any character whose identity wasn't obvious. There is some issue with any spinoff with semi-original material based on an existing property that people can't help but speculate on whether the new characters are really a familiar character under a different name, and I don't know if you can necessarily blame the writers for the audience trying to create mysteries. But I guess I'm way too easy on Rings of Power. I expected nothing from it and mostly just enjoyed getting to spend more time in a fictional universe I love without already knowing everything that was going to happen. It was pretty and had nice music, and the episodes were longer than a standard TV episode but shorter than a standard movie, so they were perfect for a Friday night when I was tired. I could plop down in front of the TV with a bowl of popcorn and look at the pretty pictures and listen to the music. I don't know how well it would hold up to rewatching or analysis, but it worked for me like any of those "ambience" videos on YouTube.

On 11/30/2022 at 1:17 PM, tennisgurl said:

Andor, on the other hand, is a prequel really done right. Its slow paced, but never feels meandering, it always feels like its building up to big things, building tension, world building, and working on character development.

Andor does a great job of showing us all those scenes that would have Happened Offscreen on OUAT. We get to see the emotional reactions and fallout. I think this is the first series I've been really into that hasn't spurred me to create mental fanfic, and that's because I'm so satisfied with what I see on the screen that I don't have any blanks to mentally fill in and there's nothing I'm trying to fix. I love that they essentially devoted an entire episode to dealing with the fallout from the previous arc and showing how all the characters reacted to what happened. When characters are reunited, we get to see the entire scene of their reunion. We get to see conversations.

I also like that Andor is a hero without wanting to be a hero or talking about being a hero. That always bugged me in OUAT, all those characters talking about wanting to be heroes, which sounded like what they wanted was glory. Andor does the groundwork and pushes others into the spotlight and would probably deny being a hero. The people who are out for glory and recognition are the bad guys. And the villains aren't at all cool or glamorous. They're all humorless bureaucrats or what I've been thinking of as the Hall Monitors from Hell. They don't get the best wardrobe (unless you're really into uniforms), they don't get the best lines, and they don't get to be so much smarter than the good guys.

[Camera One]

You all are making me compelled to watch "Andor", LOL.  

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37 minutes ago, Shanna Marie said:

I wonder how much of that is from viewer expectations, though. I've read LOTR multiple times, but haven't delved into all the related lore, so I had no idea there was any mystery about which character would turn out to be Sauron. I just figured the mystery was where he was, so when they found him, it would be obvious, and that meant I wasn't looking for Sauron in any character whose identity wasn't obvious. There is some issue with any spinoff with semi-original material based on an existing property that people can't help but speculate on whether the new characters are really a familiar character under a different name, and I don't know if you can necessarily blame the writers for the audience trying to create mysteries. 

I think it would depend on which viewers' expectations. 

If they are aiming at book fans, I don't think they were looking for mystery.  They just wanted to see their beloved story play out.  Since Sauron could shape-shift, they wanted to see him in that form doing his manipulations as he had in the books.  But the showrunners/headwriters in their interviews basically said they wanted book fans to be surprised.

Whereas for the casual viewer who probably only watched "Lord of the Rings", they did the more common route that prequels or stories based on known properties do, which is enticing viewers with mysteries.  How does this new character fit into the known "future"?  Who might be Sauron?  Who might be Gandalf?  etc.   "Once Upon A time" also did this since it's based on all these known characters.  Who was Graham?  was a bit of a mystery in Season 1.   

And "Once" also used the "How might these characters be connected?" angle, which "Rings of Power" also did.  But I think "Once" could be freer with this because they were connecting disparate stories together, like how might Snow White be involved in the Cinderella story, whereas "Rings of Power" was playing around with characters within an established story.

So I don't blame the writers for creating mysteries, per se.  For me, it was more a problem with the plotholes, the clunky dialogue and the fact that I couldn't care less about any of the characters.  

Edited December 4, 2022 by Camera One

[Camera One]

On 11/24/2022 at 6:46 AM, KingOfHearts said:

Andor has been doing a fantastic job at that though Star Wars fans have complained about it too being too slow. RoP's character conversations are just full of fluff that sounds like someone is trying really hard to write lofty literature.

On 12/4/2022 at 10:24 AM, Shanna Marie said:

Andor does a great job of showing us all those scenes that would have Happened Offscreen on OUAT. We get to see the emotional reactions and fallout. I think this is the first series I've been really into that hasn't spurred me to create mental fanfic, and that's because I'm so satisfied with what I see on the screen that I don't have any blanks to mentally fill in and there's nothing I'm trying to fix. I love that they essentially devoted an entire episode to dealing with the fallout from the previous arc and showing how all the characters reacted to what happened. When characters are reunited, we get to see the entire scene of their reunion. We get to see conversations.

I'm so glad you mentioned "Andor", which prompted me to watch it over the last week. 

I too wish "Once" had the type of pacing that "Andor" did.  I felt like I actually saw everyday life, and how the world worked, whether it was the politics or the bureaucracy, or the resistance.  Versus "Once" where the setting was just a pretty background, a job was a title and characters might as well have frozen in time when they weren't onscreen.  

As a reluctant hero, I think Emma and Cassian were equally tough but rootable with core humanity.  

Edited December 16, 2022 by Camera One

[Camera One]

I've been watching the old animated "Dungeons & Dragons" cartoon on Youtube. 

It's only just mildly engaging since it's aimed for young kids, but I've been watching it while eating breakfast and getting ready for work.

Anyway, it did make me wonder what it might have been like if our intrepid heroes from "Once Upon a Time" got transported to that world.  There were some interesting ideas for "portals".  

The world also reminded me of "Once" since it is such a generic mix of fantasy, myth, sci-fi and medieval elements.  

[KingOfHearts]

Just saw the trailer for the new Peter Pan and Wendy movie... and I thought OUAT's version was bland-looking. Geez. We're at the point now where I can't help but compare the sequels and remakes to OUAT since OUAT actually did it better in some cases. OUAT's Peter Pan was unpleasant for most people sure, but at least it was different. There is nothing interesting at all about this new Disney live-action remake. It's generic as hell.